


In the words that it was forming

by kristin



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:04:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristin/pseuds/kristin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three quiet meetings with the President.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the words that it was forming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afrocurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/gifts).



**1\. Mrs. Landingham**

It wasn’t quite what she thought it would be. Not that she had thought much about it, beyond brief idle conjecture all wrapped up in dream that someday Jed would be President. It was strange, wasn’t it, how you could think so hard about getting him into the Oval office, but not waste a thought at all about the room itself.

It was a nice room, to be sure, grander than the Manchester office by far, but still, it wasn’t the jewelbox of gilt and ornament she had thought. And the couches were harder, too, than they should be. Dolores supposed she could ask someone about that, but it could wait. 

There was time. Four years here, then four again, if she knew Jed. 

But this was all woolgathering, and there was work to be done. Dolores glanced back down to the list of messages in her lap, shuffling out any that seemed important, and passing them to Jed. She should be doing this at her desk, but Jed had beckoned her in and asked her to sit with him.

President Bartlett, she reminded herself. She should be quicker to make the transition now, having been witness to them all, headmaster’s son to congressman to governor to president-elect. Maybe it would have been easier if he changed along with the title.

“I do have things to do, you know,” Dolores looked at the President, breaking the silence. “And more to the point, so do you.”

The President smiled as he looked around the room, eyes tracing the curve of the walls, that same bright grin that made her believe in him all those years ago. And wouldn’t you know, she’d been right about the boy-king. She only wished Henry was around so she could tell him told-him-so. “We’re here,” he said, his voice 

Dolores couldn’t help but smile back, allowing herself one last glance around the room. What they needed was some art on the walls. She made mental note to herself to bring the catalogs from the National Gallery in later.

“Yes, we are,” echoed Dolores. “Now time to get to work.”

 

 **2\. Leo McGarry**  
Leo didn't sleep much these days, never had. He knew all the doctor's recommended eight, but even when he was young his mother despaired of him, the way he stayed up until all hours and woke with the birds. And later on, when his dreams became something to be avoided, well, then there was the booze and the pills.

Nowadays he embraced his insomnia. There was work to be done, far more of it than time to accomplish it. And now with no Jenny to sleep beside him, it made more sense to not even try. He was more productive in the office anyway.

Leo looked down at his desk, at the mountain range of files that Margaret had arranged to neatly this afternoon. At this point they were tumbled, with random peaks formed from folders fallen askew. “And it never stops,” he whispered to himself.

Dammit, he thought, but luckily he had been hushed enough that the crisis had been averted. And what a crisis it would have been, too, if Abby found out the President fell asleep and Leo made him wake for something less than critical. And she would be right to. 

Between the crisis in Cashmere, the State of the Union, the flu and his _thing_ the President needed all the sleep he could get, so when he drifted off during a debate over Lord Marbury’s qualifications, well, Leo was inclined to let him stay on the couch as long as he could.

Leo cringed; his _thing_. What kind of friend was he that he couldn’t even think the words. It was prudent, not saying them out loud, but in the silence of his own mind, they should be said. 

And yet. 

There was a quiet knock on the door, then Charlie poked his head around the door silently. Leo gestured him away, nodding at the couch. Charlie would keep everyone else away.

"I'm awake now, you know," said Jed, still awkwardly positioned on the couch where he had drifted off.

And that was enough of that. Sleep was best, but any respite for he could offer, well, that he would give. "No, you're not."

"Oh really?" asked Jed, but he was smiling.

"Shut up and read your briefing book, Mr. President," said Leo. Surprisingly enough, he was obeyed.

The President picked up his book, though his raised eyebrow that seemed to imply that this was a magnanimous gesture rather than any sort of actual submission. But still Leo smiled at his victory. There were battles to be fought and policies to be made, but for now, this is what they needed.

 

**3\. CJ Cregg**

“It’s just, you’re not saying anything,” said C.J., turning quickly before she paced right into the wall of the Oval Office, something that she was wary of ever since, well, since she walk right into the wall of the Oval Office. In her defense, she had been walking backwards at the time, trying to make a final point about affirmative action to Leo, and well.

But she was off the point and the President was still just sitting, reading a briefing book. She coughed in a manner that some might possibly would call was faked. Only some, though, C.J. was very good at faking. 

And see, now, she was thinking things in the Oval that she probably shouldn’t be.

The President raised his chin, looking her in the face, but his mouth remained closed. His eyeroll, however, was magnificently eloquent.

Silence, CJ could do that. Really, she could. It was just, she was still finding her footing. It wasn't that she didn't know her role now. She had seen Leo at work for years, and she could do that. 

_I can._ she thought to herself. It was just moments like these where she wondered. Because she had, by definition, never been in the room when it was _just_ Leo and the President. Her frame of reference was out of whack, and she had no idea what they were doing. And why it had to be done so quietly.

And she would be fine with it, she would. Silence was the soul of wit. Or maybe that was brevity. But no matter what was the soul of wit, she had all this work to do. Including reading her own copy of the report on South American imports that the President seemed intent on reading. On her next pass by the couch she snagged it from the stack of folder and started reading.

She was most of the way through the cotton section, when she stopped. Or rather was stopped when she walked into the wall. Again. At least the Secret Service didn't bust in this time. And the President had been very intent on his reading he probably--

"You OK there Claudia Jean?" asked the President, with what she would swear in a court of law was a verifiable twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, can we talk now? Because really, I was enjoying that other bit where you weren't," deflected CJ.

"Do you know why we just did that?"

Adjusting her skirt, C.J. walked over to the desk. "Well, sir, I do believe you were trying to get me riled up."

"I wasn't," he said as he stood, gathering his papers into a pile. "I had to read that, and well, if I said I was just reading, how quickly do you think Toby and Josh would be in here with questions and issues and distractions?"

C.J. pivoted, her heel digging into the carpet as turned towards Leo's, towards her office. "And therefore this 'meeting' with me. I was a decoy."

"Nah, I was just messing with you," said the President. "We're done now, off to face the current crisis a little more prepared than we were before."

C.J. smiled. "Yes sir."


End file.
